On the Beach
We have all been taught that the sun is not good for us. It seems that everyone my age has had some part of their face or neck trimmed of potentially carcinogenic material. We all know we should slip/slap/slop on the spf 30 gunk to keep ourselves safe. And yet, I still see the ads for the lovely beach resorts and want to go sit and frolic in the sun no less for it all. I am one of those people that rarely uses sunscreen. My wife religiously uses it every day, whether she plans to go into the sun or not. It is, indeed, what your dermatologist would advise. I personally suspect she does it more as a beauty regimen than a medical one, but I guess the result is all the same. The only place I am inclined to use block is on my fat lower lip. I seems to catch the sun just right to go raw after a few hours. Because I can feel it, I choose to avoid the problem. I’m very Pavlovian.
I’m at a beach resort for four days. There are a few things to do here (yes, it’s Bermuda) besides sitting on the beach, but lying in the sun in a bathing suit is on the agenda any day it’s not pouring rain. And here’s the thing, it feels so good. It feels relaxing and soothing. It’s warm and pleasant. How can something that feels so good be so bad for you?
Compared to many people, we are not really beach people. We have a house that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, but we are not close enough to the beach to really make use of the beach. In fact, in the nine years we’ve owned the place, I don’t think we’ve gone to sit or swim at the beach once. When we have visitors, we might go to one of the beaches to sightsee, but that’s quite a different thing. That’s going for a walk or going to lunch at the beach. We went to my ex-wife’s beach club one day last summer, but that was specifically because it was a rarity and a unique outing. They go for three or more days each week of the summer and they go to be at the beach and in the sun.
But that doesn’t make going on a beach vacation like this for a few days and sitting in the sun any less appealing. I like the fact that lying in the sun seems to tire me out. I go from breakfast to the beach. Take a break for lunch. I lie on the beach for a few more hours. Then I go back to the room for a nap. What’s that about? Does the sun invigorate us or deplete us? Is both and acceptable answer?
Another thing I noticed today as I languished on a windy beach in the sun, was that it made my head itchy. What’s that about? I would scratch and scratch my short head of hair, and do it faster and faster and repeatedly. It felt great. Why would the sun make my scalp itch? I have thick hair so I don’t think I was getting a sunburn on my scalp. I somehow think that dose of vitamin D was making it happen.
I am half Italian and have skin that, while not really olive, takes sun well. I get a nice golden tan compared to my youngest son, who gets blotchy red and white. My 65-year-old forearms look “outdoorsy” and have lots of sun spots. I’ll probably get a few more during the next four days. I like the healthy look of a good tan. Who doesn’t. Again, how can something that looks so healthy be so bad for you?
This morning I am looking out over an overcast Bermuda morning at an ocean with five shades of blue and turquoise that stretches out from here to Spain (perhaps with a stop in the Azores). In other words, the sun is not shining. I am not depressed about it because we have planned a shopping excursion for the morning and I am led to believe by the weather report that it will be sunny in the afternoon. I can go days in New York without thinking about or worrying about whether the sun is shining or not. When I am in San Diego (our other home) I never think about it either, but that’s because it is always sunny and I take it for granted. But here in Bermuda for a four-day break, I am looking at weather.com every few hours to guess about when the sun will likely be shining. The power of the sun on human existence (at least on vacation in Bermuda) is overwhelming.
I read recently that astrophysicists have now discovered that the earth will burn out in 5 billion years. By observing what they call a white dwarf star (a star like our sun that is much older and therefore in its burn-out stage of life) they can predict what will happen to earth when the sun gets to that point. In a nutshell, it is not good for earth. It seems we, Venus and Mercury get sort of sucked into the sun and are no more. That validates my “rent, don’t own” philosophy. Mars and beyond in our solar system should be fine, so by then we will have had to find a way to get and live there I guess. You can own on Mars because then we have about another 5 billion years before its finally game over for our sun and our whole solar system.
The question then becomes, should we care about this? We debated this at dinner last night and wound up quite quickly on the topic of religion and why man found that thinking about his place in the cosmos was enough to force him to pray to Yahweh, Allah and God. What else can you do when you get to the limits of your ability to comprehend except to go to the incomprehensible?
Let us not forget that almost every multi-deity religion we know of had a God for sun that was usually at the top of the deity pecking order. The sun is the thing that brings all good things to life. It makes plants grow. It gives us warmth and light. It is ubiquitous. It goes away each day to remind us why we need it so badly by the next morning. It is very powerful and very well-staged. It is more worthy of worship than almost anything other than the ocean, if you happen to live right next to one.
So here’s the question I must leave you with for the day. If we wig out when we start to contemplate what came before the Big Bang, or how far space extends and what in hell is beyond that, why are we satisfied with the explanation that the sun, the giver of all life, is so bad for us that we should avoid it and fear it in our old age? If we are going to burn up anyway in 5-10 billion years, I say we start right now and just go out and enjoy it. I sure hope the sun comes out by noon so I can take another nap on the beach and get some more color in my face.